I'm A Bee Detective (Seriously), And My Job Is Crazy AF

So Tommy Boy was completely right. Again.

Even just the ol' beemobile itself can cause some problems. "I was out inspecting in the woods and left my car parked alongside the road with a magnetic sticker on the side identifying me as the county bee inspector." Much to his surprise, "my car was called in as a meth lab (because of my smokers in the back) and it was impounded and searched." Presumably, that magnetic sticker is a lot bigger and more prominent now. Perhaps featuring several profanities. But speaking of bees and illicit substances ...

While Dale has only encountered this kind of situation twice in five years, he reports that inspectors in Southern Ohio run into it all the time. A bigger problem for him is the surprising number of people (that is, more than zero) with an equal love for beekeeping and bootlegging. "I have one beekeeper [whose hives I inspect], and I have to carry a walking stick with me to check for bear traps [because] he runs a moonshine still and does not want anyone just showing up on his property and finding it. He does not always remember where he has placed the traps, so I use the stick and keep my eyes to the ground when I walk back to his hives."

Bizarrely, it's legal to make moonshine in Ohio, but "there are still some 'good ol' boys' that feel the government needs to stay out of their business, so they run unregistered stills." That's where this sort of thing becomes an ethical dilemma for Dale. As a government employee, it's bad news for everyone, including him, if he witnesses illegal activity. "As far as reporting, there is a fine line between getting involved and getting shot. I stay out of the reporting-of-stills business, as I don't want to upset anyone. My main concern is the inspection of the hives, and the rest is up to other inspectors." Unfortunately, "with marijuana, it is a must-report." That shit's federal, and "it would be a charge of obstructing justice all the way to accessory to the crime" if he didn't.

God help us if Dale hasn't made at least one "harshing your buzz" pun while reporting them.

When you think of bee attacks in popular culture, you definitely remember My Girl:

We asked Dale about that scene, and he confirmed that those are hornets. Mind you, the word "hornet" is not said a single time in the movie -- they're always referred to as "bees."

Dale says, "Hornets will attack when they sense danger, and they will also attack in large number." But no, regular bees do not behave like that. You have little risk of getting stung by an actual bee, unless you piss it off to the point of suicide. "Honeybees have a barbed stinger, so they can only sting one time, and as they fly away, the stinger stays attached to what they have stung, and the process pulls their entire innards out," Dale says. "So honeybees will only sting when provoked or stepped on."

So stings aren't a big issue in this job. No, the main health hazards when dealing with bees are all the chemicals. "The only other issue that will come into play for beekeepers, as far as danger, would be oxalic acid used to kill and control verroa mites. This is applied by a vapor smoke to the bees before the honey comes on, or in the fall, once the honey is off. It does not kill the bees, only the mites. As a non-chemical beekeeper, I choose not to use it, but I know guys who have been out smoking hives all day (commercial keepers with hundreds of hives) and have become sick from getting into the smoke."

Working with bees involves a lot of smoke, and not just for those multitasking weedkeepers. "When we go into a hive, they are defending their young, thus they are provoked," Dale says. "We use smoke to calm the bees and to block their attack pheromones." That means burning pine needles in a smoker like this:

It turns out that exposure to the smoke of burning plant material is not great for you, being "one of the main causes of chronic bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in nonsmokers living in rural villages." Although Dale's main complaint is that "my van smells like a burning pine forest all the time."

Plus there's always the odd redneck with a shotgun. Dale vividly remembers: "I was inspecting a set of hives, and was crouched down by the hive pulling some frames when I felt something hard pushed into the back of my head. The beekeeper thought I was trying to steal his honey, and was holding a shotgun to the back of my head. He was giving me very specific directions as to what I would and would not do."

Wait, is honey theft a real risk in the high-stakes world of beekeeping? "Honey theft is not a problem, but rednecks with guns that want to protect their property are an issue," Dale says. Incidents like these are what prompted his department to start issuing more robust badges, as the paper one Dale previously carried didn't look very convincing. As if conniving thieves are sitting around printing out fake apiary inspector badges, all the better to steal your precious Toledo gold.

"Hives that do not make it through winter have to be restocked from other hives. This is usually done by purchasing a package of bees from a bee supplier. So what we have is a redistribution of bees, rather than a growth in the bee population." It's particularly exasperating because, according to Dale, "if hobby beekeepers would learn to do more than just raise bees for a summer, let them die off, harvest the honey, and restock, we would be able to grow the population of bees."

"Other issues we have is that bees are not able to establish themselves in the wild," Dale explains. "When a swarm of bees leave the hive (due to overpopulation), the bees are either killed because they landed in someone's back yard and caused concern, or they are taken by a hobby beekeeper to a hive and not properly managed." So in summation: Stop being a dick to bees, guys. They're pretty chill.

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